The random musings of a fashion addict about life and love, the positive and the negative.

Month: August 2015

Where there is desire, there is gonna be a flameWhere there is a flame, someone’s bound to get burnedJust because it burns, doesn’t mean you’re gonna dieYou gotta get up and try, try, try…

I promise there are pictures that exist somewhere of my MVW Audition outfit. I think I need to re-shoot them, though. Sorry about that. >.>

I am Miss Virtual ♛ Iceland 2016. And that still feels REALLY weird to say. For a few reasons. Any of you who have followed me for any length of time probably know a few of said reasons, but it’s just… still so surreal to me. Even after having walked the runway in our first challenge. I thought that might be the point that made it feel more ‘real’… but it’s still so… gah! Perhaps the second runway challenge, which is a tribute to our current Miss Virtual ♛ World, will sorta bring together the fact that here in the next couple of months, Eles will pass her crown to one of 33 of us competing right now.

That thought alone is still so… wow!

Anyway…

It’s surreal to me for several reasons. (Have I repeated myself enough? Lol.)

And while I was totally going to save this story for the post of my audition outfit, it doesn’t look like that’s coming back out of my inventory any time soon, so since this is my first official “MVW post”, I figured I’d tell you all this story now.

Reason #1: I’ve been working for this for the last 3 years. Every year in MVW, there is such a mixture. People who just started modeling, wanted to try their hand, and got in right away, people who aren’t certified models but are killer stylists, and people who have been working and improving for this moment to finally make it in on a second, third, fourth, etc attempt. I fall into that last category. Now, with that said, I did NOT audition last year. I did not even put my headshot in to be considered. BOSL and MVW had just come into new Ownership and I wanted to see… just how it was going to go. MVW had been built up into this huge thing… like some giant rite of passage, and there was some stuff behind the scenes under the old ownership that so many people questioned or outright attacked. I took a ‘gap year’, for lack of a better term, to watch and see.

And I was blown away. Last year’s group of ladies was amazing. The competition was run like I always knew Reign to run things. (I’ve also been rather close to Colour of Couture happenings for the last 3 years as well, auditioning, competing, helping backstage, etc.) I had every reassurance in the world that I needed in order to put my headshot in this year and get to this point. I wouldn’t change my ‘gap year’ for anything, as I got to see some truly beautiful, wonderful women have their time and their journey. And now this year, it’s time for mine.

I remember my first audition 3 years ago. I totally felt like the cards were stacked against me. Not purposely… but just… I didn’t actually get a live audition until the last one. So there were literally 40-50, if not more, of us walking for the last 4 or 5 spots. Lol. Needless to say, there were going to be a lot of disappointed models, and I was ultimately one of those. Even though I’d expected it, it didn’t stop it from hurting any less. But I’d just recently begun modeling, and I remember speaking to one of the ladies who DID make it through, and she reassured me, “This was my third try.” Not her third try that year… her third YEAR trying. And I’d always looked up to this woman as a model.

If it took her 3 years, then it’s a process. I’d resolved that in myself and started working my ass off.

Reason #2: It’s not Ireland! If you scroll back a bit, I spilled my guts some time ago about my “Ireland dreams”. It had always been my dream and goal to represent Ireland in MVW. My father was Irish… which, with his death just over 2 years ago, made this dream that much more significant. But also, for the longest time I ran around SL as a redhead. I was always some form of red. When my skin was darker, my hair was more of a crimson/merlot/blood red. When my skin was pale, I was a ginger. I was always convinced that no one could take my red hair from me. And then someone did. I was literally at the point that I could not look at my avi with red hair. The reason for which and the story behind the change just… isn’t something I want to go into… but I started running around with something I never thought I’d do again… super pale, and super light/platinum blonde. And that became my look. Now, I’m not saying I couldn’t represent Ireland just because I didn’t have red hair anymore. And in fact, it was my second choice in country selections. But I happened upon a quote about Iceland one night while I was on a random Google search. And the quote spoke to me so deeply, I knew I had to make it my first choice. Iceland is like… my life, and my journey, in country form. *Laughs*

“When you live in a country which moves alarmingly under your feet every five years or so with an earthquake or a volcanic eruption, you face, like the saga heroes of old, a choice of two courses of action, neither of them good: Either to flee the country and all its hazards, or to stay and brave them out. For more than 1100 years the people of Iceland have chosen to stay and brave them out.”

That is me. And that is what I will continue to do. When faced with the choice to run away or brave it out… I will ALWAYS brave it out, for as long as I can take it. And I’m still here. So, that should tell you something. 🙂

Anyway… I know this had nothing to do with the actual runway challenge that we walked in on Saturday… haha! The theme we were given was Lady Marmalade Meets Zumanity… both of which are amazing. I knew generally what Zumanity was, I’d heard about it in passing, mostly because I’m obsessed with Cirque du Soleil, and so is Nova, and she’s also obsessed with this show in particular. But I’d never actually poked around the trailer videos and stuff before this challenge. I was REALLY inspired by the ‘Wind’ number, and the little previews of it I saw. Which explains why my styling was a bit ‘longer’ and ‘more covered’ than a lot of the other candidates. I wanted something that would flow like the Wind performer did, but I also didn’t want to be in just a sheer bodysuit. So I took my Lady Marmalade and the burlesque that I love dearly (and have WAY too much of in my inventory from my neo-burlesque dancing days!) to recreate “Wind in the Style of Lady Marmalade”. It was super fun, and I had a blast walking with 32 other wonderful women.

Alice knows where she’s goingShe says in heaven, there’s no lonelinessAs she reaches her final dayShe still wears a smileAlice knows where she’s going…

“Switch to the improved posting experience.” Stahp. No. >.<

Welp, I promised that I’d introduce you all to my second character in Realm of the Forgotten, my Paranoid Schizophrenic halfbreed… so here she is. *Giggles* She’s called Fae, but her true name is Faelwen. She can be bound and controlled by her true name, so it’s really in her best interest that that not get found out by just anyone.

She’s a half-breed between a High Elf and a River Nymph, so she has Water Affinity, the ability to essentially communicate with water and control it with a bit of proficiency. River Nymphs can breath under water, and also have an ability called Breath of Life, that is a kiss that allows someone to breathe under water for an hour. However, River Nymphs also have the tendency to fall in love with landwalkers and then accidentally drown them… my suspicion is by using that kiss and then keeping them underwater too long. *Laughs* I’ve not had a roleplay like that yet, but it certainly sounded like it would be fun to play.

I wanted her to look mainly like an elf, though now with the introduction of hit points into the races, I’m thoroughly concerned that that will play against me when the app processors are assigning my hit points. River Nymphs by default have 9, and Elves have 6 (while Humans have 8…?) So I’m a little afraid that I will end up on the lower end of that spectrum because she appears mostly like the elf in her. But I won’t know until the app processors get to that.

Oh, yeah… the sim is going through a massive re-roll of our characters because some improvements to the system have been made in preparation for coming out of Beta (super exciting!), so we’re all in the process of re-submitting character applications. It helps some of us who may see some traits that we should have taken based on how we play their personalities, so I’m thoroughly interested in seeing how this goes.

I’ve not sat down to do my re-rolls yet. But I know I want to keep Fae mostly the same. A Paranoid Schizophrenic Prophetess… a Directionally Challenged Dreamwalker? There are some amazing roleplays to be had with that. ESPECIALLY since they’ve been working so hard on the Dreamworld skyboxes so we can actually roleplay out dream scenes. There have already been some pretty interesting roleplays of Fae following her delusions around and ending up in some… strange places.

Because she is water and magic inclined, this gacha set from Zenith at the newest round of Fantasy Gacha Carnival was about the most perfect thing of the entire round. Lol. I managed to get every piece except the shoulders, and after watching far more lindens than I’d like to admit go into the machine, I gave up. There is also a really neat hat that I wish I could wear with Fae, but her ears are too big and come up too high that they pierce the hat. However it’s amazingly made and works so well to pull the whole set together.

Aside from being a Prophetess, the profession Fae uses to actually make money is dancing (me? Play a character that’s a dancer? NEVER!) so of course I’m always looking for things that fit her character but are still condusive for dancing, and so this outfit just… gah. I can’t get enough of it.

She has zero weapon skills whatsoever, and when I first made her application, I actually took “Physically Weak” and “Battle Fear” both as weaknesses, however I think the staff on her back could perhaps aid in her attempting to be intimidating, which is something she does try to do when she’s frightened, and it can also aid in spell-casting, when I manage to earn enough character points to start teaching her higher level spells.

I’m looking forward to revamping and tweaking her just a little bit and getting back out to play her again. She’s such a fun character, both to style, and to play.

Also, because credits in this post may be a little confusing, as most of it is the Zenith set, I’m going to include Zenith’s Gacha Key. So if you don’t see something specifically credited, it’s likely a part of this set, under the “Outfit” credit. Sorry if it’s confusing!

My life flashed before my eyesRazorblade lips and daggers up in your eyesBaby your love is a crimeDanger by day, but you’re evil in the night…

“Switch to the improved posting experience!” God no! I like my posting experience the way it is, thank you very much. I’m already more than a little irritated at the two successful hacking attempts into my blog that has now forced me to move back to the WordPress.Com platform and re-syndicate my blog with everyone… again. I’d like to not have to learn new posting experiences. Lol.

One step at a time, WordPress. Please?

Anyway. This is an entirely new look for me, yeah? Haha. Some of you might remember my Facebook post the other day (a week or so ago?) about the Fantasy RP sim that Rodric and I found. I have two characters there, both on Tivi’s avi, just different appearances and different slots on the roleplay HUD for her information, but this is one of them. Her true name is Jerijah, which literally means “fear”, and she goes by Ijah, because she can be bonded and controlled by anyone who knows her true name. She’s a demoness who doesn’t exactly… eat? She feeds solely on fear.

Though how she harvests said fear, as she is learning, can tend to drive people a little bit insane. So that’s always fun.

She is the darker side of me. When I’m angry, upset, stressed out… when I just want to throw things or beat things with sticks (ask Rodric… it happens more than you might think), it’s a nice outlet to go and be able to roleplay a character that is simply, for lack of a better term, a frigid bitch who gives zero fucks about anybody else. And when she doesn’t feed for an extended period of time? She becomes extremely violent and psychotic (a racial trait), so that can be fun to play as well.

Plus… do you see her? The styling opportunities are tremendous! *Giggles*

Here shortly I plan to show you my other character as well, Faelwen, as soon as I can get some good pictures of her. I’m sorry I’ve been neglecting this blog for so long. As you all know, shortly after my last post, I went to housesit for my parents for a week, so I didn’t have access to my computer, nor my internet connection for most of that. Then when I came home, I was home for less than 24 hours before I ended up with a fever of 104.5 and my mother came and got me to take me back to her house. I was literally held captive (well, not literally, but it felt like it! lol) until my fever was down and stayed down without being pumped full of antibiotics and ibuprofen, which lasted about 3 days. When I got home, the storm that rolled through the day before knocked out my internet. And when I say knocked it out, I don’t mean like, “Oh, it was a signal problem that a tech fixed the next day.” I mean, literally, something nearby got hit by lightening, and it took 4 days to get someone out to fix it. Lol. From there, I’ve simply been attempting to get back into the swing of things, adjust to new medications after finally getting to go back to a real doctor, and was busting my ass on a project… that I am no longer working on.

But we won’t go into that project. Because the whole situation surrounding that mess makes me angry.

Either way, I’m back and blogging again, and hopefully will introduce you to Faelwen soon! And I’ll blog my MVW audition outfit with a bit of a recap on how that went and what is going through my head as this journey begins. And and and… so many post ideas! So excited. ❤